Page 12 of Daddy’s Little Chaos Gremlin (The Lactin Brotherhood)

12

ZEPHYR

“Beach! Beach, beach, beach!!!”

I took off running the moment Daddy and Tristan let go of my hands. My feet sank in and the sand squished between my toes, but that just meant digging them in harder as I raced through the surf. Laughing, I launched into a series of backflips, flicking sand on my face each time my hands touched down.

Daddy had gotten us swim trunks at Paradise Beach, right before we’d gone on all the water rides. Now I understood why he hadn’t made us change back after we’d gotten drenched. I waded into the water, leaping and splashing it everywhere, losing track of how much time passed before Tristan joined me. I bet he was taking pictures. Having the freedom to be myself and enjoy something without feeling embarrassed about my enthusiasm was life altering. After so many years of being considered a pest, and so many others caught up in the whirlwind of life on the road, it felt downright amazing to kick my heels over my head and walk along the sand on my hands as the water lapped at them.

For a moment, it shocked me that he wasn’t still taking pictures, it had been getting harder and harder for Daddy to keep his phone out of his hands the longer the day stretched on. Then it dawned on me that maybe he needed me to be more than just a muse. Maybe he needed me to remind him to take breaks and have fun.

I grabbed his hands and together we danced and twirled. We played ring around the rosy and fell into the water at the end of the song, laughing as we kicked our feet and made absolute messes of ourselves.

Behind us the sun was turning a stunning shade of crimson and cream, and we held hands waist deep in the water, staring at it until I started getting cold. One good wind was all it took to send me scurrying for dry land and the humongous beach towels and overstuffed hoodies Daddy bundled us in. Daddy and Tristan held towels up so I could change out of my board shorts and back into my jeans, then I held a towel so Tristan could change, too.

“I’m starving, Daddy,” Tristan declared.

“I’ll bet, since the only thing you’ve eaten since lunch is cotton candy.”

“It was so yummy, but now my tummy is empty and sad.”

“Mine’s empty and sad, too,” I chimed in. “Can we get fish and chips?”’

“Yes, please, Daddy, please?” Tristan added.

“Of course we can, that sounds like a wonderful idea. Would you like your mushy peas again?”

“Yes, please,” Tristan said.

“What are mushy peas?” I asked.

“Just mushy peas, kinda like a mashed potato, but with peas. Or you could have roasted carrots.”

“I’d love roasted carrots, but could I taste your mushy peas?”

“Uh-huh,” Tristan replied. “Of course you can. How else will you know if you like them?”

A week ago I’d been alone and scared, now I had a big brother who looked out for me the way no one ever had. I hugged him and Daddy hugged us both, reminding me that he was there, too. I had a protector, one who was already opening my eyes to just how big the world truly was. With all the traveling I’d done, I’d maybe become a little jaded. Waking up in one spot, going to sleep in another, napping as we rolled down the road. It had all become a blur. I’d seen tons of amazing things in between which had made it harder for me to be surprised, until they’d brought me here.

Everything about this country was different.

On the train ride I’d seen sheep grazing in fields that were greener than any I’d ever seen, even in Kentucky, where the blue grass waved with every breeze that blew. The hills rolled and the grass swished and curled, like it had never seen a pesticide or chemical. Maybe it hadn’t.

“How about we get our food at the little pub inside the arcade,” Daddy suggested. “That way we can play some games before we go back to the hotel.”

“Yes, please,” I said, taking one of his hands while Tristan took the other one.

Even on the walk to the pub there was so much to see. One place had rows and rows and rows of the brightest colored rock candy I’d ever seen, like, in every color. Holy crap, the colors. I felt a light tug on my hand, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the sparkly towers of candy on a stick.

“Would you like some?” Daddy asked, voice suddenly right by my ear.

Nodding, I licked my lips, tasting plenty of salt but none of the sugar I longed to. It was rare that I craved sweets, but they looked so inviting and rock candy sticks had been my favorite treat when I was growing up. Anytime I could scrape up a quarter, or got lucky enough to find one in the street, I went running straight for the drugstore’s candy aisle to select a flavor.

“You may pick ten but you can’t eat one until after you’d had your supper.”

“T-ten,” I stammered, eyes widening, because I was used to having to narrow it down to one, or on rare occasions two, if I’d skipped getting a milk at lunchtime. Ten, ten meant I could get my favorites and try ones I’d always been curious about.

Sour apple, lime, and watermelon, those were the first three to go in the brown paper sack Daddy handed me. I heard him tell Tristan that he could only pick three boxes of fudge, then I turned all my focus to selecting my last seven flavors. Holy crap, they had root beer. I snagged one of those and a honeydew melon flavored, along with a tangerine, so excited to still have four flavors left that I was practically dancing in front of the rack as I read the labels.

Berry blue swirled with cosmic grape looked like it was gonna turn the inside of my mouth colors, and I looked forward to having a purple and blue tongue to go along with the tingling of the intense sour they promised. They had black cherry but they also had pickle flavored and I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to try that. The black cherry I left alone, since cherry sometimes just tasted like cough syrup. I still wasn’t willing to waste a spot on banana. I’d yet to try a banana flavored candy that actually tasted good. I’d try mango lemonade, though, and cherry limeade. There, that was ten.

I proudly carried my bag over to where Daddy was helping Tristan narrow his choices down from four to three, the amount clearly set in stone. Tristan’s eyes darted between the two he still held, before he finally put the cookies and cream back on the shelf and hugged the sea salt caramel.

“Okay, let’s go pay for these things before I’m tempted to break my own rule and buy more than four packs of gummies,” Daddy said as he wrapped an arm around of each of us and escorted us to the register.

I was really hungry now and everything got a little swirly for a moment, so I pressed against his side and closed my eyes.

“Getting tired, little one?” he murmured as our treats were being run up.

“No, but I think I’d better eat soon, everything just got tipsy,” I explained.

“Yup, time to get you fed. No more stops, no matter what you spot along the way.”

“It’s close, right?”

“Four doors down. We can always go back and look at something after you eat if it really holds your attention.”

Sighing, I rubbed my face against his shirt, “Okay.”

I’d already seen so much today that nothing in the brightly colored souvenir stands could distract me from the rumbling in my tummy, though I did hope that we’d still have time to visit the bookstore Tristan had told me about. He said they sold puppets to go with some of the books and that Daddy loved to put on puppet shows. I loved puppet shows, but it had been a long time since I’d seen one. I couldn’t even remember the town we’d been visiting that day, just that I’d annoyed the hell out of my aunt by slipping away to see it before she was able to dump a whole bunch of chores on me.

Even the arcade held little appeal until after I’d devoured all the fish on my plate and a piece from Daddy’s, which I’d traded him my chips for. They were super good, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of fries, which wasn’t what I’d thought they’d be. Fries always made me feel too full. Potato chips, the way I’d imagined them to be, would have been too filling, too, but I’d have probably been able to eat more of them than the thick cut fries. The fish was amazing, though. I couldn’t get enough of it. Tartar sauce covered my fingers by the time I’d finished dunking my last bite, and I chewed it slowly, savoring it before washing it down with root beer. Even the root beer was different, the flavor deeper, like I could really taste the depth and bite of the sassafras, crisp and so refreshing I finished two glasses.

Squirming out of the booth took way too much effort and I felt like I was waddling as I followed Tristan to the coin machine, where Daddy filled buckets with twenty-cent pieces for us to play games with.

There were games with bundles of tickets inside of them, along with trinkets and pieces of candy and even tiny stuffed toys that would fall when the coins they were sitting on slipped over the ledge in the machine. I’d only ever seen the game played with quarters and I’d never seen anyone get pieces to fall the way Tristan did when he started playing. Then Daddy started doing the same and I realized that the games were meant to let people win and have fun on, unlike the way the carnival games had been set up. We had fun just playing our way through the room, collecting as many tokens as we spent, until Tristan tugged on Daddy’s sleeve, pointing to where a little girl with bouncy curls was just getting started with a little bucket of tokens.

Daddy grinned and gave him his bucket, then Tristan bounded over to me.

“It’s time to go to the bookstore, but we still have all of this,” Tristan said. “So I asked if we could give it to the little girl.”

“Ohh, okay,” I replied, passing over my bucket and going to stand by Daddy while Tristan took it to her. He came back beaming moments later, because she’d been so happy and announced that it was her birthday and she’d just turned three. That made it extra special. I hoped she had fun the way we had playing all those games.

It had gotten colder, and I was grateful for my new hoodie as we headed up the block to the bookstore. Even my hands stayed warm when I tucked them in the pouch and with Daddy’s arms around us, we got to share some of his body heat, too.

“They close in thirty minutes,” Daddy announced as we stepped inside. “So make sure you don’t take too long picking out your books. You may choose four each, or three books and a puppet.”

Four books, or maybe three and a puppet, and rock candy and a new hoodie and the stuffie in Daddy’s bag that Tristan had helped me pick out. My octopus and rock candy were carefully zipped up inside of my own bag, where my pin from the arcade was proudly stuck to one of my backpack’s paws. It might not have been my birthday, but it sure felt like it.

Four books in thirty minutes, though.

Holy crap!

Eyes darting around the room, I struggled to choose a starting point, until I spotted a really cool cover with a lizard man and a bunch of other characters on it. Lizards were apparently going to be my theme, because I wound up with a chameleon puppet and the matching book to go with him, as well as a book about a frog named Bay who takes a wrong turn into the bayou and nearly becomes dinner, several times over. I couldn’t wait for Daddy to narrate the voices of all the creatures that try to eat him, as well as Bay’s when he was hopping around trying to escape them. Daddy had books when we got to the counter, too, one was even a storybook, so I knew he had to have gotten it for us.

“Is tomorrow a work day?” I asked as we waited for the taxi back to our hotel.

“Only half, then it’s back on the plane,” Daddy reminded me. “We have to be up early, so we can get checked out before we photograph the cemeteries and architecture, but we’ll have a car to chauffeur us around so it will be a lot easier.”

“You won’t really have to do anything,” Tristan said. “I’m just gonna be taking pictures, though we might do some things back at home, in front of the green screen, that I’ll add to the images.”

“Ohhh, okay.”

That meant I could hang back with Daddy, hold his hand and let my mind wander. Daydreaming had always been a special escape for me. Everything around me got all soft, faded around the edges, and fuzzy everywhere else. Sound was muffled and my steps tended to slow down unless someone was guiding me, which Daddy had patiently done earlier, when the lines at the park had finally grown so long that it stopped being fun waiting to get on the rides.

“There’s something we need to talk to you about when we get back to the hotel,” Daddy said.

“I’m still hired, right?” I asked, hoping that this whole magical day wasn’t an I’m sorry day out to try and soften the blow of telling me there wouldn’t be a contract after all.

“You’re more than hired, you’re ours,” Daddy said. “And when we go home, we’ll be going home to our real home, which isn’t that apartment.”

“But I go with you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Daddy, is that it?”

“Is that…” Daddy murmured as he brushed the hoodie back from my face so he could gaze down at me in the glow of the streetlight. “Sweetheart, do you understand what I just told you?”

“Yes, Daddy,” I replied. “You said we’re going home to your real home and that I get to go with you.”

“And you’re not upset?” Daddy asked.

“Upset about what?”

“Us pretending that apartment was where we lived when we set up your trial?”

“Why would I be upset?” I asked, looking from Daddy to Tristan, who grinned and looked quite pleased with my answer. “You could have stayed in one of the rooms at Honey Hearth for the trial and that would have been okay, too. I’m just glad you chose me.”

Daddy crushed me to his chest, then Tristan squished me from behind as a car honked, the arrival of our cab saving me from being squashed completely.

“Any other choice in the world would have been wrong,” Daddy told me as he opened the door so Tristan and I could get in before he joined us in the back.

It was a good thing I was small or they’d have been squashing me again. As it was, Tristan cuddled against my side with most of his weight leaning against me and I could feel how tired he was after the long day we’d had. I wasn’t tired exactly, more like content and ready for cuddles and a long session nursing from Daddy, whose milk was beginning to soak the front of his shirt again. At home I could help him with that more often and maybe there would be room on the floor for him to stretch out and draw with us, too.

Or it could be smaller, the little voice in the back of my head reminded me. True, it could be smaller, so maybe we’d have to have coloring sessions at the table together sometime. That would have space for the three of us. Surely with Daddy and Tristan working, I’d need to start watching online videos so I could brush up on my cooking skills. I’d never had the chance to really develop any, outside of what you could do on an RV stove or over a grill, but I wanted to be able to contribute as much as I could to my new home.

I was just grateful to have one.

“Don’t you at least want to know why we did it?” Daddy asked once we were underway.

“Not really,” I said. “That’s kinda your business. I’m sure you had a good reason but I don’t think I need to know it. The only thing that matters to me is that you want me with you. I’m good at doing chores and there are videos for every recipe imaginable, so I’ll learn how to help in the kitchen.”

“Awe, cutie, that’s one chore you don’t have to worry about,” Daddy said as he hugged me close. “Theo prepares all our meals and keeps the fridge and pantry stocked with a variety of snack options. You won’t have to worry about having options you enjoy, I’ve already given him the list we made, and he assured me he’d have your favorites by the time we got home.”

“Who’s Theo?”

“Our chef,” Tristan explained. “He’s awesome. He always matches the theme of the meal to whatever I’m unveiling, but I love his everyday meals best. He makes the most amazing chicken and dumplings, and his steaks will melt on your tongue.”

“Mmmm, I love chicken and dumplings,” I said. “So, I really don’t have to learn to cook? That’s a relief.”

“It was for me, too,” Tristan admitted. “I’m a menace in the kitchen.”

“And in the living room, the library and most spectacularly, in the bedroom,” Daddy murmured as he reached past me to tug Tristan into a kiss.

It was a good thing we pulled up to the hotel or things might have gotten even more heated than the electrically charged energy that crackled around us as we got out of the cab. Tristan no longer looked tired and that gleam in his eye, as he helped me out of the cab, was filled with wicked promises.

“Get your butts upstairs before you start anything,” Daddy warned. “Or no one will have any fun tonight.”

His threat was the only warning we needed. We behaved ourselves on the ride up in the crowded elevator and all the way down the long red hall to our room. It was as creepy as the one in The Shining . I kept expecting to step out of our room to see little girls in blue dresses walking toward me.

Inside was another story. Tristan pinned me against the wall and started kissing me, while Daddy complained about not being able to shut the door. Somehow we managed to shuffle walk, banging our hips against the edge of the dresser and our toes against the suitcase Tristan had left in the middle of the floor.

“Oofff.” I hit the bed with a bounce, then Tristan landed on top of me and squished the air from my lungs. Giggling, I tickled him in retaliation, until he clocked me in the face with a pillow, which morphed into out and out war. Squealing, we bashed one another, and the wall, and headboard until our swings were halted by Daddy, who held each of our weapons tight in one of his fists.

“Really?” Daddy muttered, shaking his head at us.

We should have known not to let go. Daddy was a trickster Daddy, and he thwacked us with those pillows and tickled us until I had to race to the bathroom before I had an accident. Talk about the best day ever. I didn’t know how I was going to turn my brain off tonight with the way it was still replaying everything we’d seen. What I did know was that I’d be going to bed looking forward to tomorrow, and that was something I hadn’t felt in months.